My emphasized field of study means bringing awareness to consumers in an ever-evolving landscape of global trade.  If goods originate from an unsustainable, unethical source, I believe that all people have the right to know based on a model of corporate transparency and moral accountability.  Based on these criteria, a majority of my potential jobs would exist on the nonprofit spectrum.  In fact, I had to be careful to not include volunteer-based work when researching this post.  Otherwise, all of my findings revolved around the food industry because I, much like every other human on earth, eat food on a daily basis.  It’s easy for even me to forget what great lengths were taken to unite me with my source of energy, so I remain apprehensive about the non-researchers around me.

Potential Employer #1:  Agricultural Marketing Service
1400 Independence Ave
SW Washington, DC 20228
Phone#: 202-720-8998
E-mail: PA@usda.gov

The best way to raise awareness is by keeping a familiar connection.  As such, my first option is simply taking my talents to the Federal Government.  The Agricultural Marketing Service is a department of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  As such, it delves mainly into the supply chain side of sustainability.  The COVID-19 pandemic has obviously sent this institution for a spin, and their website tellingly has more than a few dozen open positions at any given time (AMS Career Opportunities).

An example of their field of work includes pinpointing why certain items are unavailable at any given time, as well as what to expect during price hikes (Liu & Rabinowitz).  Given my experience working as a grocery clerk for over a year, I understand the frustration that comes along with never knowing when or why goods jump in value.  For future sustainability, I hope to inform the world of these facts,

Potential Employer #2:  Ceres Community Project
2447 Summerfield Rd
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
Phone#: 707-829-5833
E-mail: info@ceresproject.org

Ceres Community Project follows in the same field of distribution, although it has a distinct nonprofit twist.  This organization promotes healthier eating by teaching skills such as gardening to teenagers.  It also offers nutritional food as medical relief for people with medical complications related to a poor diet.

I firmly believe that obesity is an epidemic in America which is slowly crushing the nation’s ability to sustain itself.  It’s widening the health gap between wealthy and poor families, especially among Indigenous communities (Hime, Naschold, Porter, & Wechsler).  This is a different type of consumer awareness than my primary field of research, but understanding it is still literally vital.

Potential Employer #3:  Fair Trade USA
360 Grand Avenue #311
Oakland, CA 94610-4840
Phone#: 510-663-5260

Fair Trade USA is an industry leader in promoting consumer awareness.  You’re probably seen its logo without even realizing given that more than 10,000 certified products are currently on store shelves (2011).  I even mentioned it in my inaugural blog post.  Suffice to say, it’s a nice gateway to the food research industry.

Fair Trade USA is one of many confederated fair-trade organizations internationally.  Its mission statement is simply to end unsustainable farming and manufacturing globally.  Some of their most widely professed goals are to end child slavery in cocoa production and to guarantee adequate working conditions in developing countries.  This includes the clothing industry; however, its primary focus is still largely on food.  Quite simply, it aims to make consumer culture more conscientious from our privileged perspective.

Potential Employer #4:  Green America
1612 K Street NW, Suite 1000
Washington DC 20006
Phone#:  800-584-7336

Rounding off this list is a more obvious form of conscientious consumerism.  Green America is a nonprofit organization with a veritable cavalcade of goals and initiatives.  Pertinent to my field of study, it aims to end the long-standing environmental abuse of industrial agriculture in the face of climate change.

This involves both sides of the supply chain.  It promotes abolishing toxic fertilizers as well as ensuring social justice for agricultural workers.  Agricultural work, especially labor-intensive crops in California, overwhelmingly consists of immigrant labor.  This bond creates a pertinent golden zone of research considering the radically different experiences that immigrants have in this nation (Black).  Furthermore, climate change will affect this industry in this specific part of America more than almost any other.  It’s worth studying for both qualitative and quantitative purposes immediately.

Underlying concerns

My only serious concerns entail location and travel.  For all of the aforementioned organizations, I would need to travel to either the Pacific or Atlantic coasts to visit their headquarters.  I also ironically have to wonder how sustainable these institutions will be in the coming decades, especially Green America given its political activism.  The climate is changing both physically and literally, and within a handful of years, I fully expect a federal alternative to many of these nonprofit efforts.  With that said, the topic of sustainability is still perpetual by definition, and I doubt that we’ll arrive at a serious conclusion for all of these controversies within my lifetime.  After all, obesity rates are still on the rise, globalization is still on the rise, and America has always been a nation of immigrants.  Otherwise, I can rest assured knowing that every human on earth is in the market for food.  Agriculture will dominate our lives until the sun burns out.  Until that day comes, my only concern is where to buy.

Works cited

(February 3, 2022) AMS Career Opportunities.  Food and Drug Administration.  Retrieved 14 February, 2022, from https://www.ams.usda.gov/about-ams/careers.

Black, M. (June 2021). The Hands That Feed Us. Emerson Collective.  Retrieved 14 February 2022, from https://www.emersoncollective.com/articles/2021/06/the-hands-that-feed-us/.

(September 21, 2011). Fair Trade Certified Sales Up 63 Percent; 10,000 Fair Trade Certified Products Now on U.S. Store Shelves; New Ingredients Policy for Product Transparency & Greater Impact for Farmers and Workers. PR Newswire. https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:53VK-VWF1-F18Y-Y2TC-00000-00&context=1516831.

Liu, Y., & Rabinowitz, A. N. (2021). The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on retail dairy prices. Agribusiness, 37(1), 108–121. https://doi-org.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/10.1002/agr.21687.

Porter CM, Wechsler AM, Hime SJ, Naschold F. (August 22, 2019). Adult Health Status Among Native American Families Participating in the Growing Resilience Home Garden Study. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prev Chronic Dis 2019;16:190021. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd16.190021external icon.